Spotify may let free users skip as many ads as they want

Since last month, Australian Spotify users have been using the Active Media feature, which lets them skip as many ads as they wish, whenever they like, even without a paid subscription or illicit apps that offer pirated versions of Premium. But everyone else on the free tier may not be left out of the unlimited ad-skipping party -- Spotify aims to offer the feature to users everywhere eventually.

The idea behind Active Media is that you'll only listen to or watch the ads you're actually interested in, Spotify told Ad Age. That way, the service should learn more about your preferences and deliver fewer ads you don't care about. Advertisers don't pay for ads that you skip.

Active Media could lead to Spotify earning more money per ad that people actually listen to, so the move may benefit everyone. However, along with limited on-demand mobile listening, it may give you a little less incentive to upgrade to Premium -- ad-free playback is a key selling point for many subscribers.

In its latest earnings report, Spotify said it had 101 million users on the free tier. Ads brought in around $144 million in Q2, or just under 10 percent of total revenue for the period.